'Homeland's Shocking Season 3 Finale Got a Lot of People to (Finally) Tune In

At times, it seems the amount of Internet chatter over certain shows have absolutely no bearing on how many people actually sit and watch that oft-discussed show. Just look at Community: It's survived five seasons partially because of that aforementioned chatter, but it's never grown above the "meh" when it comes to ratings. Such was not the case with Showtime's Homeland and Masters of Sex, both of which hit series highs in their ratings with their season finales these weeks.

Homeland's always been a buzz-worthy show, but the series' third season hit a bit of a rough spot critically for a while. That makes it all the more impressive that the show's third season finale has earned the distinction of being the show's best-ever ratings, with 2.1 million viewers.

Masters Of Sex has, on the flip side, been somewhat of a critical darling throughout its freshman season, and that critical lauding helped them out too in the slide into the first season finale: Masters brought in 1.23 million viewers, which, according to Deadline, is a 21 percent increase on the numbers their series premiere got.

Both Homeland and Masters Of Sex are being majorly buzzed about today due to the nature of their finales — a death and a confession, respectively. So it's probably safe to say both shows are looking preemptively good when it comes to ratings for next season.